Do You Feel It?

Does Christmas make you cry?

          I’m not talking about tying the season to grief. I’m talking about the real experience of thinking of God joining us in our existence here. Does it make you cry? I’m thinking about that because I’m thinking about the depth of emotion we might experience within our celebrations. Is it poignant enough, whatever part it is that hits your sensitivity, to warm your eyes, to make them fill and spill over? Maybe not a lot. Certainly, not into sobbing, but with an experience that turns that key within, that bit of permission to feel it deep enough to draw out your emotion.

          There’s enough within it to do that. There’s old Zechariah, the priest who has lived with an ache of childlessness with his wife Elizabeth. There’s the rejection of Mary, and the deep practicality of Joseph’s grieving a lost future. There’s the arduous walk to Bethlehem which closes with a dismissal from the family homestead. There’s the escape to Egypt with the killing of some half dozen innocents back in the village. There’s the later relocating to a community that knows all the shame of your lives. There’s even the living with the truth of God’s intrusion into our world that can’t be shared with, pretty much, anyone, because who’s not going to think you’re insane. Or worse, they think you’re covering up your own sinfulness with fantasy.

          There’s enough in the story to make one cry.

          And so, because that’s true, there must be so much within the story to make us rejoice. Does Christmas make you laugh? Do you laugh over Zechariah having to live with a pregnant woman for 9 months without being able to speak? Somehow, we miss that comedic moment on the part of our God. Do you laugh over Joseph trying to convince Mary that he now believes her, with her hands on her hips, asking, “So, why didn’t you just believe me the first time? How come you needed God to send an angel?” Does it make you chuckle to think of shepherds hiding under sheep when the skies rip open to shout the glory of God, or imagine them crawling over each other to get to sleepy, little Bethlehem to see “this thing God made known to us?” Do you smile as you see the caravan of the Wise men making their way through the village of Bethlehem. Mary opening her door to discover a troupe of strangely dressed people and shouting for Joseph to “Come right now!” Can you enjoy the moment when this poor couple is suddenly provided with resources they could not imagine, just when it is needed?

          There’s enough to make one cry and enough to make us laugh.

          As you enter into the story again this season, allow the truth of it to move a bit slower, so that it gives you time to resonate, to recognize what’s actually happening in the lives and hearts of those on the page. Give it time so that all of it culminates in the Spirit saying, “I did this for you. I wanted you to know how much I love you.”

          So let yourself feel it, because in the tears and the laughter we reveal love received.